VENICE, CA-NOVEMBER-14: Logo of Snapchat is seen at the front entrance new headquarters of Snapchat , the popular social network startup that lets users send each other photos that quickly disappear, November 14, 2013 in Venice, California. Snapchat recently turned down a $3-billion buyout offer from Facebook. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) VENICE, CA-NOVEMBER-14: A security guard holds the door for a man to enter the new headquarters of Snapchat November 14, 2013 in Venice, California. Snapchat recently turned down a $3-billion buyout offer from Facebook. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) less

VENICE, CA-NOVEMBER-14: Logo of Snapchat is seen at the front entrance new headquarters of Snapchat , the popular social network startup that lets users send each other photos that quickly disappear, November ... more

Photo: Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images

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Honorees and Founders of Snapchat Evan Spiegel (L) and Bobby Murphy arrive at the Time 100 gala celebrating the magazine's naming of the 100 most influential people in the world for the past year, in New York April 29, 2014. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENTERTAINMENT SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS) less

Honorees and Founders of Snapchat Evan Spiegel (L) and Bobby Murphy arrive at the Time 100 gala celebrating the magazine's naming of the 100 most influential people in the world for the past year, in New York ... more

Photo: Lucas Jackson, Reuters

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Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy attends the Time 100 Gala celebrating the Time 100 issue of the Most Influential People In The World at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 29, 2014 in New York. AFP PHOTO / Timothy A. CLARYTIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images less

Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy attends the Time 100 Gala celebrating the Time 100 issue of the Most Influential People In The World at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 29, 2014 in New York. ... more

Photo: Timothy A. Clary, AFP/Getty Images

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Snapchat will allow users to easily save messages

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Ephemerality, it turns out, is ephemeral.

Snapchat has ascended the ranks of the Apple App Store since its release in 2011 by offering mobile messaging without the digital paper trail. Once viewed, photos sent via the app vanish in seconds.

But buried in its product updates released last week was news that the app company in Venice (Los Angeles County) has also pivoted away from its original hook: users can now easily save content with a single tap.

For a company that built a brand on costumers fatigued by endless social sharing and the risk of the private becoming public, such a move seems counterintuitive.

Last month, when Time magazine named Snapchat co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy to its list of 100 most influential people, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey summed up the app's appeal: "The visual, personal and ephemeral nature of Snapchat creates a freedom for people around the world to just be themselves."

Snapchat was on to something. The app spawned a fleet of copycats all vying for market share in the ephemeral space, including, recently, an app called Delete It Later that promises to add "Snapchat features" to Facebook and Twitter.

Workaround apps also attempted to turn Snapchat content into something permanent, including SnapCapture for Android and Snap-Hack Pro for iOS. And users, of course, have always been able to take a screenshot of any message, thus easily preserving the fleeting forever.

But it turns out that Snapchat's disappearing act was mostly an illusion - on Thursday the company agreed to settle with the Federal Trade Commission on charges it misrepresented its privacy and security to consumers by claiming messages "disappear forever," in part because of the many ways to hack the app's ephemeral nature.

Longtime mobile analyst and Andreessen Horowitz partner Benedict Evans questions whether the privacy piece of Snapchat's ephemerality is what drew most people in the first place.

"Which part of the ephemerality did people care about?" he said. "Is it that images aren't automatically saved? Is it that they disappear? Is it that it's really easy to do sketches?"

Snapchat's update, which includes video messaging and text features, is a hint that the company wants to expand from its function as a medium for quick hellos, jokes or sexy photos. To be a real force in the growing mobile messaging space - going up against competitors like WhatsApp - it may need grow beyond the niche of ephemerality.

Allowing users to save snaps, though, may be more about giving them what apps like SnapCapture indicate they want.

"Snapchat is trying to differentiate itself from messaging by making a better conversation platform," said Brian Blau, research director for the information technology research and advisory firm Gartner Inc. "Since ephemerality is a piece of a conversation, it will remain a prominent part of the service, but remembering important conversation waypoints is, too. A save feature is an important addition to support a more robust conversation tool."

In fact, Snapchat's new save feature may be less a pivot and more in line with how the company has thought about the concept of ephemerality all along.

"It would be better for everyone if we deleted everything by default," Spiegel told the Associated Press last year, "and saved the things that are important to us."